Wagons Ho!

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This saga begins one week ago today.  My husband and some helpers cut 4 strips of material that measured 4 feet by 16 feet.  Then he asked me to sew them together to make a 16 x 16 foot top for a covered wagon.  This material is some that was available for free so it is not cotton.  It is a polyester cotton mix, heavy on the poly; so it is slippy and fringes very easily.  So I called my mother. =-)  

Then I got out my sewing machine and sewed the 3 seams to put the strips together.  Thankfully each of those edges had a selvage.  Monday night I  dropped the material off at Mom’s and she serged the 2 unfinished edges.  Tuesday morning the material was back at my house and ready for the casings to put the pipes through.  This is where it got tricky.

My husband told me that 1 inch casings should be plenty.  So in half an hour [with no interruptions] I had 2 casings sewn no smaller than 1 inch, but sometimes wider because the edges were not straight.  To make a long story short - when my husband tried to put it on the pipes Wed. morning the casings were too small.  [moral: take the measurements yourself - carpentry and sewing are different!]  So home again, home again, jiggety jog came the material.  I sat there contemplating this large pile of material and trying to find some way not to have to totally rip out the two casings and re-sew them.  For 1. it would weaken the material because it is like a fancy dress - once you put a hole through it that hole is there to stay and 2. I had 2 hours to finish and be ready for church and it took 1/2 hour to sew them not including any rip out times.

After a half hour of many ideas flying back and forth my husband and I figured out the easiest way.  I would leave one casing alone and he would use the smaller pipes from our basement that we previously bought to install an outdoor water faucet.  We only had enough smaller pipe for one side.  For the other side I sewed the original casing shut and made a new 2 inch casing that just fit over the pipes.

Wednesday night my husband and some helpers put the top on the wagon they had created from a flat old hay wagon.  It looks pretty neat, even with the wrong kind of tires. =-)  It looks even neater when it is being pulled.  The top has survived the wind and rain so far.  Now if we only had some real horses to pull it!

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2. I’m Stuck In a Mattress Rut
3. One of Those Mornings
4. Guts But No Glory
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